


Here be Dragons

by Farasha



Series: The Edge of the Map [2]
Category: Black Sails
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, M/M, Reunion Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-18
Updated: 2016-11-18
Packaged: 2018-08-31 15:50:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,344
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8584414
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Farasha/pseuds/Farasha
Summary: Eleven years after a feckless young sailor met a shy young lieutenant, James Flint and John Silver are different men than they were. Confronted with each other after all this time, trust may be easier than either one of them expected.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * In response to a prompt by [yeoman014](https://archiveofourown.org/users/yeoman014/pseuds/yeoman014) in the [pirate_prompts_2016](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/pirate_prompts_2016) collection. 



Eleven years was a long time, but John didn't think he ever stopped hoping for the trim lines of a Navy ship every time they were pursued by a black flag. He had, however, given up hope that he would trip over the frequent object of his thoughts in Port Royal ever again. He assumed James was dead, or that he'd been sent to other waters, or that he'd found a nice English woman and settled down ashore. The last thought was perhaps the worst - that despite what they had shared, James might have been taken prisoner by polite society and denied the truth of his heart, having to play dutiful husband and father to an improbable amount of red-headed children.

His hopes had been thoroughly dashed this time. John had been a pirate for two days, and he still nursed a small, hollow feeling of disappointment that the _Scarborough_ hadn't caught up with the _Walrus_ as they left the remains of John's last crew in their wake. Then he wouldn't have been forced into a dangerous enterprise with a partner he could only barely trust, on a ship whose crew he absolutely could not trust, with a captain who, judging by his reputation, would certainly gut him as soon as he found out.

John was already on deck when said captain returned from wherever he'd gone, but he was thoroughly occupied with trying to figure the lay of the land when it came to the impending vote. A turnover in leadership might benefit him enormously. There was no telling if the new captain would even know about the page missing from the log. John might be free and clear, lined up shortly with Max's buyer and then in the wind.

It was such a tantalizing thought that he failed to mark the _Walrus's_ captain when he climbed over the side and immediately retreated to his cabin. He'd yet to get a glimpse of the man, though John knew him by reputation. Captain Flint, the most fearsome pirate in these waters, no survivors, the lot. He already knew the 'no survivors' part was nonsense, but he had to say, seeing the crew poised to unseat Flint undermined the legend.

The quartermaster emerged from the cabin with a stony face. 

"The captain will join us momentarily," he said. The challenger - Singleton, with scars all over his face and one of the more vicious sneers John had ever seen - eyed the quartermaster like he was calculating the advantage of snapping off a remark.

Before he could make it, a loud thump carried over the men from the captain's cabin. Heads turned, but the captain didn't emerge - it sounded like he'd thrown something. A few long moments stretched out, and then John heard the unmistakable sound of a door swinging shut.

The man who mounted the stairs in silence, his dusty blue coat flapping in the wind, his red hair bright in the sun, was like a specter from the past. John swallowed hard, trying to ignore how his mouth had gone dry. Ever since he'd seduced a Navy lieutenant who stole away with his heart in the small hours of the morning, John couldn't help but lean in closer with every glimpse of James' likeness. 

This time, it was so similar it was staggering - especially when the man spoke. 

"I'm sorry," he said, quelling the crew into a silence so total John could hear the slap of the waves against the hull. It was that rasp, that soft, low voice John had heard so many times in his dreams, that made it real. It couldn't be mistaken. John watched the man move, his steps heavy on the deck, the log clutched in his hand, his words nearly unintelligible through the heartbeat in John's ears.

As the captain held the log high and proclaimed the page stolen, John couldn't tear his eyes away from the man's face. _James, my God_. 

It was him. It was impossible not to be him. As he got closer, and John saw the full view of his face, he knew - he knew that face as well as he knew that voice. Captain Flint was James McGraw - a Navy man, a good man, someone John remembered as staid and somewhat shy. What had _happened_ to him?

John shoved the shock of recognition to the corner of his mind. This was not the same man he'd known all those years ago. Whether he could trade on their history remained to be seen. What he needed now was to get the measure of Flint, and ignore what he knew of James. He concentrated on the captain's speech, on the look in his eye when he turned to face Singleton, and on the twist of confusion on Singleton's face when Flint all but accused him of stealing the page. Surreptitiously, so he could be sure nobody would notice, John teased the edge of his coat open and laid his fingers on the leather case where the page rested.

"Theft is punishable by death," the quartermaster said, stepping up to the two men. "As is a false accusation of the same."

A lurch of dread squeezed John's heart, wiping away the impressed half-smirk that had curled his lips when he realized what James - Flint - was doing. It only grew as the watching crowd pressed further back away from the cleared space in the center of the deck. Flint stripped off his coat, tossing it carelessly over a barrel. 

_Still in blue_ , John thought. There was no mistaking the silhouette of James McGraw that lay over Captain Flint - not with the way he stood straight-spined, the way he moved like he was used to clasping his hands behind his back as he spoke, the way he knew just how to pitch his voice to carry over the deck of a ship.

But this, now, was a side that John had never seen. Flint and Singleton drew steel, and John saw a curl of fury in Flint's lip as he settled his weight on the balls of his feet, one hand lifted for balance and the other firmly around the hilt of the sword.

John flinched as they came together. He couldn't tear his eyes away as the two traded blows, the clash of steel ringing out over the silence. It was nothing like battle - there, it was all smoke and flying splinters of wood and confusion. This was too quiet to be a spectacle but too staged to be anything else. Then Flint took a blow across his chest, laying his shirt open and drawing a line of bright red blood, and John couldn't help gasping through his clenched teeth, his hands squeezing desperately at his own arms. 

The wound seemed only to spur Flint into greater viciousness. The swords were gone - it was bare hands, now, and John's mouth was dry as they rolled around the deck, Singleton's hands around Flint's neck. Flint groped to the side - John saw the cannonball before his hand closed around it, knew now how this fight would end, and still could not tear his eyes away. 

The sight of James beating Singleton to death would burn against the backs of his eyelids for a long time, and yet - and yet when Flint sat back, still shaking with rage, blood smeared across his face and into his beard, all John could feel was relief. Not fear of the monster kneeling on the deck before him, but relief that the man he had once known was still alive.

Flint was holding a folded piece of parchment out with a shaking hand. Billy, the bosun, took it, unfolded it - and stopped. John knew very well what _wasn't_ on that page, but Flint held Billy's eyes with an expectant glare, his chest heaving, still bleeding from the gash across it.

Billy confirmed it, after a long aching silence, and John bit the inside of his cheek to keep from grinning. A bluff, a fucking bluff, and James had carried it off with brute force and a loyal man. It was fucking beautiful.

As was the hoarse, ragged speech that followed, the one that set the men cheering thunderously. The _Urca d'Lima_. What John held was more valuable than he ever would have thought. He spared only a moment of regret to what might become of Max, making promises of a sale she couldn't keep. Now that he knew that James was alive, here, he couldn't hand the page over to anyone else.

Flint, Billy, and Gates the quartermaster slipped into the captain's cabin while the crew was still buzzing with feverish excitement. Singleton's body still lay cooling on the deck, and nobody had yet moved to do something about it. Silver, for his part, slid through the crowd, a taut grin plastered over his lips for appearance's sake. He needed to talk to Flint - to James, if there was still any of James left in the creature he'd seen today.

His timing, it seemed, was impeccable as always - no sooner had he reached the cabin door than it was flung open, and Billy stood framed in the doorway. He looked down at John from his improbable height with a frown pulling at his mouth. "You."

"Me," John said, his grin taking on an edge. "If I'm not mistaken, I believe I have something you want." Billy stared him down, a muscle jumping in his jaw like a tic. He grabbed John by the sleeve of his coat and propelled him into the cabin, shoving, despite John's raised hands. "Easy now - I came to you, remember?"

"Stealing from the crew is a hanging offense." Billy shoved him one last time, hard enough to make him stumble. There was a table upended in one corner of the cabin, likely the source of the thump he'd heard from on deck - it looked like it had been thrown. 

The desk was still upright, and Flint leaned against the edge of it, his chest still laid open and bleeding sluggishly. His green eyes had a wildness that John didn't remember. His hair was shorter, his beard longer, and even from here John could see the years on him he hadn't carried before.

He could tell the minute James recognized him. He half-stood, startled, his fingers curling on air.

"John," he breathed, seeming to forget the other two men were even in the room.

John's grin softened against his will - but he could never have held onto a mask in front of him, not after all this time. "Hello, James."

"You know each other." Gates didn't seem to be asking a question - his eyes were narrow and shrewd, taking in first one man, then the other.

"We've met." Flint bit the words out, staring John down until his smile couldn't help but falter.

"Before you came to Nassau, if I don't miss my guess."

"Yes." It sounded like Flint had to drag the word from the depths of his chest, and the startlement was gone from his eyes. Now there was only wariness in its place.

John swallowed, too aware that Flint was still covered in blood and had just killed a member of his own crew, after framing the man for theft. If he had miscalculated in this, if James was truly so changed from the man he'd once known and the legends about Captain Flint were all true, he had just delivered himself to the edge of the blade.

"Gentlemen," Flint said, standing. He still had the bearing - god, he looked so similar to the way he had those years ago. But for the hardness in the set of his jaw, he might have been the same man. "I believe our problems have just resolved themselves. If we are indeed in possession of the lost page, then Singleton is dead, the captaincy assured, and none need hear about the truth of this little incident." He paused, looked from Gates to Silver to Billy, and added, "Ever."

Billy let out a long sigh. "They'd have all four of us up before the mast if they knew - you lied, I lied for you, Gates enabled it, and Mr. Silver here is, it seems, a thief."

"Only when need strikes," John said, feeling compelled to defend himself. "If it's a choice between theft and death, I'd like to see you choose differently."

"This all supposes that he has the page." Gates was still eyeing John with something very close to dislike.

It was unnerving, and John didn't much care for being the most scrutinized object in the room. He pulled the leather case out of the inside pocket of his jacket and crossed the cabin. Billy moved a little, like he might want to reach out and stop him, but John stepped up to the captain - this man who wore the face of a lover from a decade ago - and placed it in his hand.

Flint kept that unbearable, piercing stare on him for another excruciating moment, then looked down at the case, teasing the page out of it and unrolling it over the open captain's log. The torn edges lined up perfectly, and there was no mistaking that handwriting. "There it is," Flint said, spinning the log book deftly and shoving it at Gates. "Our way to retirement, at the very least."

Gates looked like he couldn't quite believe it. Billy gravitated closer to the desk, his boots thumping on the wooden floors. John wanted, suddenly and powerfully, for them both to get the fuck out. The way Flint was looking at him, like the man couldn't decide if John was an apparition crawled up from the depths or not, simply had to be addressed.

Then there was the wound on his chest, still bleeding sluggishly, and the blood on his face. The feral light in his eyes. John bit the side of his tongue to keep from saying something ridiculous because he was nervous - god, sometimes he thought back on how he'd first approached James on the beach and cringed at himself - and held his ground, waiting.

"If you'll excuse us," Flint said finally, not looking away.

Neither of the other men moved at first - John darted a look out of the corner of his eye to find Gates scrutinizing him again. 

"Captain," he finally said, clapping Billy on the shoulder and steering him out of the cabin.

The door shut, the noise of the deck falling muted once again, and then it was only the two of them. One of the most infamous pirates in the Caribbean and a ne'er-do-well who'd never caught the right break. If an outsider had looked at them, it would have seemed a ridiculous picture. The only thing they shared was something nebulous, something from a long time ago that had hurt to lose but had been long since buried.

John couldn't help but stare, now that there was no reason for propriety to get in the way. His eyes tracked over Flint's face, weathered and lined since the last time they'd met. Lines around his mouth from frowning, lines in his forehead from worry. So few laugh lines. John's eyes skittered away from his face, tracing down his chest, still broad and muscled like it had been - and still bleeding.

"Do you have anything for that?"

Flint was still staring at him. His face was set in some unfathomable emotion - his jaw clenched, his mouth pressed into a tight line, breathing hard through his nose. When John spoke, it was like the shattering of an illusion. Flint lurched forward, a movement so sudden John couldn't have anticipated it, and seized him by both shoulders.

"What are you doing here?"

John's hands came up of their own accord, palm-out, and he froze in Flint's grasp. There was blood still wet on his lips from the nosebleed. That feral, heart-pounding look had yet to drain from his face. He was like something caged, nothing like what John remembered, and the question fell from his tongue before he could stop it.

"What happened to you?"

Flint spun him around. It was too sudden for John to react or counter. The edge of the desk pressed into his back hard, digging into his spine, and Flint was in his face, close enough for John to feel the heat of his breath.

"You answer first - what are you doing on my ship, and how did you come across this?" He jammed his finger at the page John had given him. "I've spent years looking for this information, when I finally find it, I find _you_."

The way he'd said it was impossible to decipher. The air in the cabin suddenly felt thick and impossible to draw. John swallowed, suddenly aware that he was facing a dangerous, unpredictable man that he only claimed to know by virtue of - what?

"Providence." The word came unbidden - John couldn't seem to stop saying the first thing that came into his head. "Do you remember? The last time."

It was like John had struck him a blow. Flint pulled back, his mouth tight again, the lines in his brow wrinkling. He stepped away, tipping his head back and fixing his eyes on the deckhead - John was watching the man fall apart in front of him.

"James." He couldn't help himself - he came closer, even when Flint - James - went rigid and still. John's fingers went first to the wound on his chest, peeling the shirt away from it. He tried to be gentle, but James still hissed through his teeth. John darted a quick look up at him and saw the unreadable expression was back, like the mask had never cracked, and the impassive captain was the only man he'd ever seen.

"I do remember." James' voice was thick, but he seemed to have pulled himself back from whatever brink he'd teetered over. "I said that to you more than ten years ago, when I was a different man."

"I only knew you at your best." John's smile was quick, but sly, the kind of smile he would have flashed when he was still young and reckless and out to have as much fun as his meager life aboard ship allowed. It wasn't much, but it had brought him something of value - a man he'd met once, who he'd been able to be himself with, unquestioned, unbridled, and purely of his own direction. Who that man was now remained to be seen. "I'm not the same either."

"No." James watched him ease the shirt away from the long gash, and batted John's hands aside when he reached for the hem. He drew his own shirt over his head, balling it in his fists. Tension sat in his shoulders and in the line of his back, straight as a spar.

"It was my ship," John said, nodding to the log.

"You weren't ship's cook, then. You were more useful in the rigging."

"You remembered." That was unexpected. More unexpected was the way it hit John behind his ribs, warm like a welcome home. He took a deep breath and closed his hands around James' shirt, tugging it out of his grasp. He set his fingers into the gash and ripped, tearing strips of it while he spoke. "I lied about that. I don't cook - I don't particularly know how."

"Lied well, if you convinced both Mr. Gates and the bosun." James' eyes had gone cool again, carefully cataloging John's movements. "You weren't such a good liar then."

"I learned," John said, irritation making his voice short. "I was young and pretty and had a mouth on me that caused trouble. What do you think things like that breed, if not good liars?"

James caught his arm, halting his movements. "I didn't say it was a bad thing." His voice was quiet. "I'm glad it kept the crew from killing you."

It wasn't the way he'd always pictured this happening, but James wasn't pinning him to the desk and snarling in his face anymore. 

"Sit down." John patted the desk surface.

Nothing moved at first. James loomed over him, John's arm in his grasp, his brow knit. He looked torn, like he still couldn't bring himself to believe that John was there, or that he was who he said he was, or that he'd come upon the _Walrus_ and her captain by chance after all.

James' grip loosened and his hand fell away. He heaved himself up to sit on the desk. Without waiting for invitation, John stepped neatly between his knees. It an odd feeling, to be with James like this. Fully clothed, without the urgency they'd met with before. And yet, though he'd come to mislike being touched overmuch, being in James' space was different. It was as if they'd picked up right as they'd left off that night in Port Royal, tangled up in each other's limbs. He laid the torn linen out across James' lap.

"Water? Or rum," he said, looking up at James again. After another brief stretch of silence, James leaned back to rummage in his desk drawer. It gave John an unexpectedly tantalizing view of the way the muscles moved in his stomach, stretched taut by the twisting motion. When James turned back toward him, John was caught out staring. He flicked his eyes back up to James' face and was gratified to see the corner of his mouth twitch, like he was holding back a smile. John took the dark bottle James offered him and pulled out the stopper, sniffing at the neck and making a horrendous face to cover the heat staining his cheeks.

"Tastes just as foul as it smells," James grunted, apparently in somewhat more of a sharing mood now. John upended the bottle over the wound, splashing dark rum across the bloodied surface of James' chest, and James hissed through his teeth at it.

"Sorry." John picked up one of the torn strips of James' shirt and dabbed at the wound, rubbing away tacky, drying blood and dirt from the surrounding skin. "I thought he had you with this."

"Singleton?" James snorted, something more vicious than simple amusement curving his mouth this time. "His swordplay was laughable. I hardly think he knew which side of the weapon was the sharp part."

"He was clever enough to set himself up in opposition to you, and nearly win it." John discarded the bloodied, rum-soaked rag and started knotting strips of linen together into a long bandage.

"Not clever enough to win." James was staring at him with that narrow-eyed, scrutinizing look again. "You've hardly been aboard long enough to find out who's clever at what."

Now it was John's turn to huff in disbelief. "Your crew isn't exactly composed of scholars, James. They're a bunch of flap-mouthed gossips. I'd figured out inside of three hours that there was opposition to your captaincy, and where it came from, and who was most likely to vote for and against you. It's not difficult, if you stand by and act like you're either deaf or stupid. Or both."

"Or perhaps you're more observant than most," James murmured. It was soft, like an afterthought he hadn't been able to keep from adding aloud. John laid the first length of bandage against the wound and glanced up at him to find his expression had softened, too. He wasn't looking at John warily, like he was a threat to be evaluated. His consideration was more thoughtful, like John was a puzzle to be figured out.

Two could play at that. "You were a Navy man, when we last saw each other." James stiffened under his hands, but John didn't take his eyes off the work of winding the bandage around James' chest. There was only silence in answer to John's unasked question, and it stretched between them longer than John could bear. He always did have a problem with patience. "Were you discovered?"

That made James stiffen further. His hands tightened on the edge of the desk, the muscles in his arms locking up. John had to lean forward, closer into his space to wrap the bandage up over his shoulder, around his back to the opposite hip. The heat from his body was palpable even in the stifling air of the cabin.

"There was an affair," James said finally, so quiet John would have missed it if there was any other sound but the soft lap of waves against the hull. "His name was Thomas. The son of a lord."

Jealously crawled up the back of John's throat, and he cinched a length of the bandage too tight, making James grunt. He forced a deep breath past the stricture in his lungs and loosened it with his fingertips skimming over the skin of James' chest. "That old story," he said, trying to force levity into his tone. "I imagine Lord Thomas' wife discovered you in bed with her husband and cried injury? Did you flee England ahead of the hangman's noose?"

James let out a barking laugh that didn't sound anything like the way he'd laughed when John had known him. This was a sound full of bitterness and sorrow, and John immediately regretted asking.

"Miranda was the one who encouraged us. She was as much a part of that house as Thomas and I. She provided a convenient fiction - society assumed the affair was between the two of us, and while it may have been scandalous, it was not nearly as revolting to the Admiralty as the truth." James spoke with a voice so bleak it could only be masking terrible grief.

John's hands fell to his thighs, squeezing a little, shaking James out of the memory. He, too, was becoming less wary of the man, especially when he imagined the kind of heartbreak James must carry with him now. 

"I'm sorry I asked. I assumed-" he stopped, biting the side of his tongue, trying to quell that urge to push for the advantage that always dwelled in the back of his mind.

"What did you assume?" James asked. Softly, not pressing, not jibing like John had with the comment about Thomas' wife. John looked into his eyes again and saw something of the man he used to know.

"I assumed you'd married, to be frank. When I didn't see any sign of you for all those years, I thought surely you'd been promoted to some captaincy that kept you on the other side of the ocean, and surely you had a wife awaiting you on shore." John picked up the end of the bandage and resumed wrapping, his hands lingering longer than they should, taking the chance to look away from James and what John saw in his eyes.

"You and my crew both," James said dryly. "They're half of them convinced Miranda is my wife, and the other half believe she's some kind of witch and has me under a spell."

"She's here?" John asked, startled into looking up at him again.

James had that haunted expression about his face again. "Thomas made her promise we would take care of each other, before they took him away to the sanatorium. We came here together. She's..." James trailed off, his mouth pulling into a frown. "I thought she was the last person on this earth who knew what I was before I was this, but that isn't true anymore, is it?"

John felt his heart lurch in his chest. "No. I knew you."

He wound the rest of the bandage around slowly, paying special attention to how it lay against James' skin, until he finally tucked a loose end under the wrappings and smoothed his palm over his work.

"I didn't think I'd ever see you again. I tried to make myself forget you." John let out his own mirthless laugh, an echo of James' before him. "I especially tried to forget that last conversation we had, about providence bringing us together. It was useless, I thought, to become swept up in romantic notions when I knew well that you would hardly have run away with me." His mouth was what had run away with him. John sighed, fussing with the bandage, unwilling to step back out of James' space but also unwilling to look at him again and see amusement, or mockery.

James caught John's hands in his own. "I thought of you often." The words were halting, like they were hard to say. "There were long nights at sea when I thought of what might have become of me if we had stolen away to Madagascar, after that night together in Port Royal. The free ports there don't give a damn who you make your bunk with."

"And instead, here we are, poised to become princes of the New World." John nodded at the schedule for the Urca. "If that wasn't fate, I don't know what to call it."

James' eyes were so green. John remembered them more than most other things - how vibrant they were when James laughed, how dark they grew in passion, how the spark of rapt attention within them had stolen his breath. James still had John's hands in his own, their fingers curled together, rubbing over each other's calluses.

"You don't know how long I've been searching for that," James murmured. "You had it purely by happenstance. It was you aboard that ship, out of all the ships you could have been sailing, in all the seven seas. Providence, indeed."

John could not restrain the smile that overtook him, the urge to step in closer to James and settle his hands on James' waist. James touched him in return; a broad hand came to rest at the nape of John's neck, beneath his curls. The other stroked down John's back, gentle and slow, nearly a question.

It was a question John was glad to answer. He leaned in, watching James' face, seeing his gaze flick down to John's mouth and feeling his fingers tighten on John's skin. When their lips met, it drew a sigh from them both. James clutched him closer, his kiss desperate and hard. John wondered when the last time was that he had been touched by someone who desired him, much less someone who knew him for who he was.

"Wait," John gasped, breaking apart from him. "Can we even do this here? Won't you be expected on deck?"

"The men will drink themselves insensible," James said. His mouth was still on John's skin, trailing over his jaw and his neck now. "Gates knows. He's likely guessed what we were to each other, or at least enough of it not to expect me for some time."

Old remembered caution sent a chill racing down John's spine at the thought that anyone knew what seemed to be about to transpire in the cabin. Doubt was a sour taste in the back of his throat, and the grip he had on James' waist slackened.

"What were we to each other?" he asked, half-fearing the answer.

James closed the distance between them and kissed him again. It was entirely at odds with the man he'd seen not an hour ago on the deck. At the same time, it was yet unlike the man he'd known ten years ago. That man had been shy, willing to go where John had lead. This James was firm and confident, meeting John halfway where James McGraw would have let John take the lead.

"We were something that could have been," James said, only drawing away far enough to breathe the words over John's lips. "We're something that can be."

John had to kiss him, at that. He had to feel James' mouth against his own, had to clutch this man close to him. He'd given James up once, when he had no way of keeping him. Now, though. Now, James was right - they were something that could be. Something John wanted to be.

James pulled at his shirt, and John tossed it away. The expanse of bare skin against his own was warm and dusted with freckles. He could see them, now, in the daylight streaming in through the cabin's lone window. He hadn't been able to make them out the times before, in the dark of the beach or the dim light of the lantern.

"Are you sure?" he asked, pulling back even as James tried to chase his mouth with his own lips. "I pined after you for more years than I should have done, but you had your son of a lord." He left the other part of his thought unspoken, locked up tight in his own mind - what could James want with a thief and a liar, someone he'd only known as a good fuck?

The hand on his cheek was gentle, the touch of James' fingers soft. "What Thomas and I had was something I don't know if I'll ever have again. But you're here. You're real. You're not a phantom of the past or a spectre from the depths of my night terrors." James stroked his thumb over John's cheekbone. "I should ask you if you're certain, as well. You shouldn't forget who I am just because you knew who I once was."

James still had dried blood in his beard. John reached up to wipe the tacky substance away, stroking his thumb over the wiry ginger hair. James closed his eyes and swayed into the touch, clearly yearning for more of John's hands on him. John's other hand clutched tight at James' hip.

"Captain Flint," John said, swiping his thumb over James' lip. "How did that come to be?"

"I chose the name with every intention of letting it rest one day." James' hands were moving, stroking over John's bare back. "With the kind of wealth aboard the Urca, Nassau will be free to govern itself, and then I will go away from the sea and make a quiet life somewhere I won't be bothered."

"Is that what this is about?" John tipped his head at the schedule again. He was only vaguely interested in the conversation. The rest of his mind was occupied with the task of unbuckling James' sword belt, tugging his boots off, and unlacing his breeches.

"We can talk strategy later," James said, his voice a deep, teasing rumble that made John shiver. The hard rasp that sometimes came into James' voice was absolutely unfair.

James took advantage of John's momentary distraction to pull his breeches open and tug them down over John's hips without further ceremony. With James sitting on the desk it was harder, but he stood obligingly when John pulled at the offending garment, and they were both bare in short order.

"I don't suppose you have a bed." John looked around the cabin dubiously.

"Not one that would stand up to these kinds of activities," James said. He swept a small contingent of papers free of his desk and laid down on it, his feet dangling off one end, his hand still cupping the back of John's neck.

"I want to ride you," John whispered, staring at James' naked body, stretched out for him on the desk like an offering. The most dangerous pirate in these waters, looking him with expectant lust, his hair turned a gorgeous burnished shade by the sun.

"Come here then," James said, tugging at him. John scrambled up onto the desk, swinging one knee over James' stomach and then settling atop him. He took care not to jostle the bandage, but couldn't keep his hands from roaming every square inch of James' freckled skin.

"I missed you," John said, wistfulness writ large in his voice. He kissed James to cover it up, licking at his lip. James opened his mouth, and John groaned into it, for once not trying to be showy but genuinely taken in by the heat of James' tongue against his own and the rough, broad hands that stroked up and down his back.

"I did too," James murmured when they parted. "I didn't ever expect to see you again either. I couldn't think of what might have become of you, not and keep from falling into despondency. I am glad to see you well."

He looked like he meant it. There was that same painful sincerity on his face that had been there all those years ago, and John had to kiss him again for it. They lay kissing for some time, John propped up on his elbows so he wouldn't muss the bandage and James' hands roaming over his skin. John shivered every time James' calluses prickled at the sensitive skin of his lower back. 

His arousal had been distant, before, merely a result of how intimate they were and how long it had been since John had a bed partner he genuinely liked. Now, when James closed his teeth around John's lower lip and nipped at it, when those wonderful hands went down to John's arse and squeezed, it was suddenly urgent. John rolled his hips against James, his cock hard and bumping against the defined muscles of James' stomach. He could feel James, too, nestled in the cleft between his buttocks and hard as John was.

James groped over the side of the desk, swearing as he knocked over an ink bottle. John laughed, surprising himself at how honestly happy it sounded.

"Laugh at me all you like, but you aren't getting me inside you if you don't help me find something to open you up."

John shuddered, unable to keep from catching James' mouth again. "You didn't used to be so forward."

"You'll have to get used to that." 

James yanked at a drawer, his lips curling in a frustrated snarl when it didn't budge. It made him look fearsome, like the kind of man who could do something as vicious as what John had seen on deck. There was a moment of dissonance, as John truly saw that this was Flint, not only James - that the captain was as much a part of him as the man.

He distracted himself by leaning over and pulling the drawer open, him having a better angle from on top, and rummaging inside until he found a small bottle of oil that smelled vaguely mineral when he unstoppered it.

"Give that here," James ordered, and John complied with not a small amount of amusement.

"I can see what you mean. This captaincy has gone to your head. I remember when I could make you insensate just by speaking of what I wanted to do to you. What if I said I wanted to do it myself while you watched?"

James' hand was slick with oil when he grabbed for John's arse again, his fingers sliding easily into the cleft and over his hole. He pressed without pause, sinking in the tips of two fingers immediately, and John went rigid on a sharp gasp.

"I think you'll find I am considerably more comfortable taking what I want these days." The dark smirk on James' face was something John had never seen before. It was still stained with the blood of the man he'd killed, his green eyes hot with a lust no less intense than the rage John had seen before. 

He forced himself to keep his eyes on James, even as the fingertips inside him spread apart then drew out to rub at his hole before pressing in again. John's eyes fluttered but he didn't close them, watching the way James raked his gaze down John's body and back up again. John's pulse sped again and a host of uncomfortable questions flashed through his mind, not the least of which being how James could be so gentle with his hands after the brutal beating he'd delivered.

And even still, even despite that, John would be lying if he didn't admit that the darkness was enthralling in its own way. James had been interesting for his earnestness, when John met him the first time. Now he was interesting in an entirely different way - one that might even dovetail neatly with John's tendency to leap at any opportunity that presented itself.

James suddenly propped himself up on his arm, changing the angle and pushing both fingers entirely into John's arse. He closed his teeth around John's collarbone and bit as he twisted inside. John jerked with a gasp, his eyes sliding shut at last, pleasure sizzling up his spine like a lick of sunshine on a cloudy day.

They both tumbled back against the desk, John gasping as the motion meant that James’ fingers left him. It was only momentary, and this time when he was breeched again, it was _more_ , a sensation of slick fullness that stretched him open wide. The head of James' cock eased into him slowly, but once inside, John tossed his head back and sank down all at once, his mouth open on panting gasps.

James couldn't keep from touching John anywhere he could reach, his hands stroking up and down John's back, over his shoulders, leaving trails of cool oil on his arse and the back of his neck. John made a face at that one - it would stick in his hair - and pushed back onto James' cock, sitting up fully. It sank so deep inside him that John couldn't hold back an utterly contented sigh.

"I could stay just like this for days," he murmured, working his hips in shallow little circles that ground James' cock against the place inside him that made his limbs shiver and his toes curl.

"I always did want to see this again." James gripped his hips in both hands and lifted, the muscles in his arms bunching, and then dropped John back down onto his cock. His hips surged up at the same time, and the combination made John moan.

"Me on top of you?" John tipped his head back, his eyes closed, letting James move him more than he moved himself.

"You're just as beautiful as you were then. God, John." James' fingers tightened even more on John's hips. The pace was slow, but each thrust was shattering in its intensity, James rocking up into him and John clutching at his forearms, feeling the strength in them as he lifted John up and let him fall back down. He was impaled, taken as surely as if James had him bent over the desk instead of kneeling astride him.

"James." He gasped it breathlessly. His cock bounced against his stomach with every thrust, but he didn't touch. He didn't want it to end. If he could stay like this forever, full of James, he would. Any urgency he felt to come had been lessened by how James looked beneath him. John leaned down and kissed him again, fingers tangling in his red hair, pulling it free of the tie.

James planted his feet on the desk and used the leverage to deliver more of those deep, wonderful thrusts. John felt like his skin was prickling all over, from their lips to James' hands on his hips to the slide of his cock in and out of John's body. Pants and breathless sighs and short moans punctuated the sounds of skin smacking together. John closed his eyes and lost himself in it, moving as James moved, kissing and gasping into his mouth.

Pleasure began to coil in his gut like a shot of warmed rum. John almost didn't want it. What if, again, they had to part when they were through? What if James sent him away - too much of a liability or too obvious of a bedmate. Could the merciless Captain Flint be seen with the ship's cook on his arm, with the whole crew knowing John was also on his cock?

"James, please." The words left him before he could stop them, his mouth running away from him again. John kissed him, struggling to hold back the orgasm that had his thighs trembling where they clamped around James' waist.

"Please?" James' hands left his hips, smoothing up his back, one arm wrapping secure around his shoulders and the other hand cradling the back of his neck. It felt secure and warm, and it made John's chest go tight like James was squeezing his ribs.

"Please say I can stay." John hated how vulnerable his voice sounded when he said it, but he needed to know - needed to know before he lost himself in this that it wouldn't be the last time.

"I'll not send you away if you don't wish to go," James murmured, his breath hot and sending shivers through John's limbs. "I don't believe I could bring myself to let you go again. Not when I might have to wait another ten years."

To his infinite embarrassment, the answer made his eyes feel hot with moisture, and he buried his face in James' throat, grinding his cock against his firm stomach. The intensity of it swept over him, pleasure rolling through him with all the force of a strong tide. He couldn't hold it back any longer, and he bit at James' neck to stifle the strangled sound that ripped through him when he came, nearly a sob, relief like a warm blanket settling over him.

James held him even tighter, pumping his hips, sending washes of too much sensation through John with every stroke, drawing out John's pleasure until he was gasping all over again, his eyes wet for an entirely different reason. James groaned John's name as he finally stilled, his cock jerking and twitching inside in a way that made John shiver all over again.

It was only after, as he lay sated and lazy atop James, that John remembered the bandage and sat up suddenly. It was spotted with blood where the new scab had torn, and John clicked his tongue.

"You might have told me I was mussing all my hard work."

"And have to stop? Hardly." James hadn't let him go, still inside him, his hands still on John's skin like he couldn't bear to let go.

John knew the feeling. He could spend hours like this, his hands trailing lightly over James' chest, ostensibly to fix the bandages but really taking the opportunity to touch every freckle with gentle fingers.

"I never wanted to sail," John admitted. It was something he hadn't told anyone, a secret disappointment in his life he'd kept locked deep in his soul. "I don't like the life. The risk. The danger. I thought too frequently of what might have become of you, if I was wrong and you hadn't married. I had dreams of you sinking to the depths of the sea and being helpless to stop it."

When he looked up at James, there was something fathomless and sad in his storm-green eyes.

"I've sailed for as long as I could haul a line," he said. "At first I did it for crown and country, for all those noble ideas they sell to young midshipmen so they won't desert the first time they see a battle. After the illusion was shattered and I saw England for the beast it was in truth, I sailed because I knew of nothing else. It's all I've ever had." He fell silent for a moment, reaching up to touch John's face again, like he was reminding himself that this time, they didn't have to part. "I have long since come to the point where I wish to walk away from it and find peace. And now you've made that a possibility."

"By stabbing a man, stealing a thing of unknown value, and lying to everyone about who I was and what I wanted." John tipped his head into the touch even as his tone turned self-deprecating.

"You just watched me beat a man to death," James reminded him. "We're neither of us good men anymore."

"No," John said softly, because he couldn't bear how bitter James sounded. "I find myself oddly unbothered by it."

"Not so odd, since I find myself entirely unbothered that you lied to join my crew."

"To survive," John corrected, wanting no mistakes made about that. "Though, if I had known that James McGraw and Captain Flint were one and the same man, it might have been a different motive."

"You know now." James looked hesitant again, like he was expecting John to run from the monster he could see inside the man.

"As I said. Unbothered." John leaned down to kiss him again. He still tasted faintly of blood, and even more faintly of sweat and salt. He still smelled of skin and sea, the maddening scent that had threaded through John's dreams for all those years apart.

Eventually, they had to peel themselves apart from the warm tangle of limbs, but the sense of quiet companionship that had permeated the cabin did not diminish. James removed his sea charts from the floor to the desk, consulting the schedule John had brought him and plotting their course. John hoisted himself up on the desk at his elbow, offering commentary and catching James up on the ten years of misadventures he'd missed.

It would have been, perhaps, surprising to one who knew James Flint, or John Silver, that their conversation came easy and frequently peppered with smiles; that John occasionally leaned in to place a soft kiss at the corner of James' mouth; that James at times would capture him by the curls before he could escape and turn it into something more lasting. To John, it simply seemed that a piece of him he had not known was missing clicked neatly into place. He could imagine a future of comfort, without loneliness, and that was something he had not been able to boast for the whole of his life.

He would not let it be said that he was a man of religion to speak of, but with the evidence before him, John thought he might yet come to believe in providence.


End file.
